Having read the write up that accompanied the article on Melhman I nearly spit coffee. "As someone who came out later in life I can say It gets better" he says. Please, its better for him because he's wealthy, conservative and most importantly DOESNT live in a state that hurled anti-gay policy around like grenades to make sure he can't EVER get married in them. He lives comfortably in one of the few states where it is better...but refuses to own up to the fact that its significantly less so in other parts of the nation because of his role as RNC chair. It hasn't gotten better for gay couples in the 11 states where they adopted the RNC's gay (southern) strategy and enshrined their state constitutions in bigotry to make sure gay people couldn't share their lives in any meaningful way.

I find the drum and strang on Melhman irksome because there have been very few conversations about him post coming out that even attempt to directly speak to his culpability as head of the party that made and continues to make being rabidly anti-gay a tentpole. Instead he's being lionized by OUT and more than a few apologists because he's out of the closet well after the damage has been done on the national scale and it is no longer politically expedient for him personally. There is in fact nothing heroic about being overwhelmingly opportunistic...and yet, here we are attempting to make excuses for those that haven't admitted wrongdoing. There's something so snide and disappointing in this narrative it makes me genuinely question the collective memory (and sanity) of the group he's profited off of maligning.

Honorable Mention.

"Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit social convenience. I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others."- Coretta Scott King

"So, what have we learned? We have learned the first lesson. They will always hate us...we must give ordinary humans respect, compliance and understanding. And we must never mistake that for trust." Emma Frost, Astonishing X-Men #1

"I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids-I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. " Ralph Ellison

"The X-men will continue to fight for a word that fears and hates them...but we will never be victims again." - Cyclops- Uncanny X-Men #1